Is Baddiel calling Ken Loach a Holocaust Denier?

David Baddiel attempted a bit of a pile on against me a couple of weeks ago and in so doing seems to have accused Ken Loach of Holocaust denial.

The smearing of Ken Loach begins with the BBC wildly misrepresenting a speech by Miko Peled at a fringe meeting hosted by Free Speech on Israel at the Labour Conference 2017. Labour had done remarkably well in the general election of that year and the establishment decided to focus all the smearing on exaggerated, manipulated or fabricated allegations of antisemitism. Anyway, here's Miko Peled:

There was no discussion, just that remark by Miko Peled. Anyway, let's see now what the BBC did with that:

It's interesting but at some point in the interview the interviewer notes that Loach is alleging that some Labour MPs - actually it was mostly Labour MPs - were "confecting" allegations of antisemitism before going on to do exactly that herself. But anyway, this is the interview where Loach is wrongfooted by a Beeber flat out lying about what had occurred at the aforementioned FSOI meeting. She said that there had been a discussion as to whether or not the Holocaust had happened. Having no clue what she was talking about but knowing she was lying, he couldn't straight up condemn Holocaust denial or debate because that would have seemed like confirming that the discussion that had not taken place had taken place.  Wow, I just looked at the video again and the Beeber was such an outrageous liar.  Look from 01.44 "there was a discussion about the Holocaust, did it happen or didn't it?" Loach shakes his head vigorously and says "I don't think there was a discussion". She then says "well it was reported and it was on the [unintelligible]" She then says 01.57 "would you say that is unacceptable?" Loach then says "I think history is there for us all to discuss", thereby turning to a generalisation about history, not the specifics of the Holocaust.

This is one of the most lied about lines of the whole long smear campaign and the BBC's tweet truncating the clip so as to lie about Loach is still in place. Dave Rich of the Israel lobby and security group, Community Security Trust, couldn't resist his own mischief, tweeting that "Ken Loach said....whether the Holocaust happened "is there for us all to discuss".

But Dave stops short of calling Loach a Holocaust denier. He was challenged by Linda Sayle.

You are wickedly mis-quoting Ken Loach. He said "history is there for us all to discuss". Calling people holocaust deniers without basis and scattering accusations of antisemitism around like confetti does great damage.

— Linda Sayle (@LindaSayle) February 5, 2020

Now if you look, even Dave Rich wasn't stooping to accusing Loach of denial, just of tolerance towards deniers and debate with them.

I didn't call anyone a Holocaust denier, so you are misquoting me. I have no idea whether you are doing it "wickedly" or not.

— Dave Rich (@daverich1) February 5, 2020

Poor Linda didn't know how Dave likes to play with quotation marks. Do you see how his quotes are simply around "is there for us all to discuss", not "whether the Holocaust happened"? Dave does that all the time. Anyway, Dave did not, repeat not, call Loach a Holocaust denier. But note, he stops short of denying "scattering accusations of antisemitism around like confetti". He should have stopped at "I have no idea".

Anyway, David Baddiel picks up and runs amok with Dave Rich's smear and, for the book, sexes it up just a tad.  See page 66 on:

The film director Ken Loach was made a judge of a school competition run by Show Racism the Red Card, which is a football anti-racist charity similar to Kick It Out. In 2016, [it was 2017] during an interview at the Labour Party conference, Loach said, on being asked about the presence at a fringe meeting of a speaker alleged to have questioned the history of the Holocaust, [Miko Peled in the above clip] ‘Well, I think history is there for us all to discuss.’ He has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier*, [my italics] but nonetheless this appointment led to protests from the Jewish community. For a while, SRtRC reacted angrily, doubling down, getting Eric Cantona to tweet about what a great anti-racist Ken Loach was and suchlike. In the end, Loach did step down from judging the competition, but as ever there was no outcry from progressive quarters – only Jewish ones – about the possible incongruity of his appointment.

I wouldn’t particularly mention this – it’s just a standard, everyday example of #JewsDontCount – were it not for the fact that while this minor furore was going on, a man called Dave Rich, who works for a charity, the Community Security Trust, which provides security against racist attack for Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres, [and lobbies the government for Israel and smears Israel's critics] tweeted this:

Followed by a second tweet that just said: ‘I can think of better judges for an anti-racism competition.’ I retweeted it. And then Ken Loach’s son, Jim, tweeted this:

I see @Baddiel casually retweets internet trolls like @daverich1 who defame my father @KenLoachSixteen. You’d think with his background he’d be a bit more careful when accusing others. pic.twitter.com/6gSlz4KSKw

— Jim Loach (@JimLoach) February 6, 2020

First up Baddiel misrepresents Miko Peled. Baddiel has written a book which he intends to be taken seriously. Clearly he is either lying about Miko Peled or he simply didn't check anything, even the thread that he RTd a tweet from. In fairness the lack of checking is possible given he gets the year wrong. But even without checking, surely he realised that Dave Rich was being slippery with the Ken Loach quote. If he didn't know any of this or didn't reason any of this for himself, then why did he ignore most of Jim Loach's tweet?  "@Baddiel casually retweets internet trolls like @daverich1 who defame my father @KenLoachSixteen".

Jim Loach protests Baddiel RTing "internet trolls like @Dave Rich who defame" his father. No pause for thought over the word "defame", no? Jim Loach is accusing Baddiel and Rich (and by extension and most concerning of all, the BBC) of lying about Ken Loach, which they all were. But Baddiel had points to score and scores to settle so he takes the opportunity to show what a know-nothing he really is. 

You see, Jim Loach references one of Baddiel's racist outbursts, this one against the former footballer, Jason Lee who Baddiel encouraged famously racist football fans to mock by way of Baddiel donning blackface makeup and wearing a pineapple on his head to represent dreadlocks.Googling Baddiel, pineapple, Jason Lee, stuff like that, you will happen upon many an article with Jason Lee saying that Baddiel never apologised to him for what he did. Baddiel claims he apologised. He doesn't say who he apologised to and doesn't seem to realise even what he did wrong. Now see page 70:

What the apologies make no difference to is the recurring presence of that photo on my Twitter timeline. Particularly since I started speaking out publicly about anti-Semitism, whether it be anti-Semitism in general or on the left. In fact, it can seem that what the people demanding apologies from me want is not apologies. What they seem to want, really, is silence. They want me to shut up, particularly about anti-Semitism. As far as they are concerned, the photo of me as Jason Lee is a trump card that means I cannot speak about racism...

There is a tactic some of you may be aware of called Whataboutery. 

Yup, there is a tactic called Whataboutery. It's when you justify your own wrongdoing by reference to the wrongdoing of your opponents.  But Jim Loach is not accusing Baddiel of doing what his father has done. He is correctly calling Baddiel a liar about his father and a hypocritical liar over antisemitism. 

But there is another charge of hypocrisy to be made against Baddiel. He says that his own racism is used to try to disqualify him from talking about racism in other situations, in particular in his case, against Jews, He says this is a #Jewsdon'tcount instance. But that's exactly what Baddiel is saying about Ken Loach. The only difference is that Baddiel, Rich and the BBC all lied about Loach. You don't have to look far to find examples of Baddiel's racism. That is, you don't have to lie to make a racist out of Baddiel.

Here he is saying he looks like a "pikey".

Here he is essentialising Blacks, Asians and Jews by occupation. He got some rare mainstream flack for that, albeit in the Guardian's letters page.

But really mentioning two (three with blackface - many with blackface many times) examples of Baddiel's racism spanning over 20 years doesn't convey nearly enough of it.

He does another slippery thing. He claims that people have tried to silence him since he started talking about antisemitism as if this postdates the examples of his racism which go back to the 1990s but I'm sure I saw him alleging antisemitism against Israel's leftist critics back in the 1990s, which you could say was Baddiel's racist heyday if only it was over. 

But the final thing is this. I remember the first time I read Baddiel's stupid book, the line about Ken Loach that baffled me the most was after Baddiel claimed Loach was challenged about "the presence at a fringe meeting of a speaker alleged to have questioned the history of the Holocaust" we have what looks like a non sequitur:

He has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier

Now remember Dave Rich insisted he certainly wasn't accusing anyone, certainly not Loach, of Holocaust denial. So who did accuse Ken Loach of being a Holocaust denier? Why would Baddiel say he denies it?

It rankled with me as I was sure my skim reading had let me down. That's one reason I got the Kindle version, so I can cross-reference, search, copy and paste, etc.

But then a couple of weeks ago I was googling for something, probably Baddiel related and I found that Baddiel himself has been "confronting Holocaust denial", ie, debating with Holocaust deniers,ie, what I thought Baddiel, Dave Rich and the BBC were falsely accusing Ken Loach of promoting.

I noticed that in the BBC puff for the stuff two Holocaust deniers are named and it appeared that Baddiel goes off to debate these people. I tweeted that Baddiel was doing what he falsely accused Ken Loach of doing, ie, debating the Holocaust. Actually, it's worse, it's publicising not simply the fact that some people deny the Holocaust but their names. This meant that people intent on denying the Holocaust could hone and further publicise their arguments by going to the go-to names. 

I tweeted my criticism in a four tweet thread.

The irony of David Baddiel smearing Ken Loach as a promoter of Holocaust debate is that Baddiel & Lipstadt both publicise Holocaust denial and confront it with the facts thereby engaging in the very debate Baddiel falsely accuses @KenLoachSixteen of promoting. https://t.co/dtbyzR5saQ

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

When Lipstadt wrote a book on deniers, including Irving, Irving's plan was to cross-examine her on the Holocaust & expose that she knew nothing. Thankfully she didn't have to take the stand so he lost but it could have been a disaster. That's the dangerous game they're playing.

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

The BBC's lie that Jewish socialists discussed whether or not the Holocaust happened was the most disgusting of all the lies in a smear campaign that is still ongoing. In fact, Baddiel's book with the Loach smear replicated in it is the most recent contribution to the campaign.

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

And the fact that Baddiel publicises Holocaust denial is of course much worse than irony, worse than hypocrisy, in fact it wasn't even hypocrisy,it was projection: accusing people of doing a bad thing that they don't do but Baddiel does.

— Jews Sans Frontieres (@jewssf) April 3, 2021

That could have been that but rather then respond to my first tweet that QRTd his tweet, he grabbed the fourth one which didn't name anyone and didn't tag him. He knew that I was slagging him over Loach but none of his followers could know because he grabbed the tweet, he didn't QRT it. Sneaky huh? Look: 

Here's @jewssf suggesting that because I did a documentary challenging and exposing Holocaust denial, I am secretly a Holocaust denier. When people on here hate you, for whatever reason, it's amazing the contortions they will undergo to channel that hate. pic.twitter.com/wg1VOv41Is

— David Baddiel (@Baddiel) April 4, 2021

Now even in the tweet he grabbed there is no suggestion he is a Holocaust denier. That's just silly and his followers are silly. Many of them replied to him saying how illogical I was and some had a go directly at me. I responded pointing out that I had said that he condemned Loach for promoting Holocaust debate whereas by confronting Holocaust deniers he is engaging in the debate that he falsely condemned Loach for promoting.

Well in all the toing and froing, I finally said to someone, the only way Baddiel's tweet tagging me works is if he thinks that me comparing what he is doing to what he accused Loach of doing is if he is accusing Loach of Holocaust denial. Oh wait! Finally the penny dropped. "He [Loach] has since very strongly refuted being a Holocaust denier" followed by the word "but". Baddiel seems to be flatly contradicting his mentor, Dave Rich (or maybe Rich is Baddiel's mentee). Baddiel appears to be accusing Ken Loach of Holocaust denial. I wonder.

By the way, the smearing of Ken Loach is yet another score settling exercise in Baddiel's stupid book. This time it is more aimed at Ken's son Jim. What a piece of work that Baddiel (aged 55) is.

BBC still smearing Ken Loach after all these years

 This BBC tweet basically lying about Ken Loach should not still be there. But since it is, I'll embed it here to show what liars they are. 

"History is for us all to discuss." - Ken Loach on reported #Lab17 fringe comments about whether it's OK to ask if the Holocaust happened. pic.twitter.com/cXkpqMsb0R

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) September 26, 2017

Please watch the 46 seconds that the BBC presents via its tweet. Thank you.

Now watch a fuller version of the same interview:

The length of that one is 2 minutes and 28 seconds. The fuller version shows the BBC's desperation in trying to present evidence of left antisemitism.

Does anyone know the name of the lying piece of shit from the BBC?

By the way, this is only clip I could find of Miko Peled saying "Holocaust, yes or no?" which was the only mention of the Holocaust at the Free Speech on Israel LabCon17 fringe meeting the Beeber was lying about. 

Mark Regev's English is good but the subtitles are a real help

This is by AN Other on YouTube:



It looks like Israel's supporters at the Beeb are losing ground largely, I suspect, because the facts are speaking for themselves with or without subtitles.

BBC aims weapon of mass destraction at the Prawer Plan

I was amazed yesterday when I heard a BBC Radio 4 announcer announce an interview with Amal Elsana Alh’jooj.  I'm not sure how long the recording will be on the net but you can hear it certainly for a while here. 

Obviously the big news for many of us regarding the Negev, the Bedouin and the State of Israel is the Prawer Plan so my amazement was based on the fact that the beeb was going to give its listeners a Bedouin perspective on the plan to ethnically cleanse between 40 k and 70 k Bedouin Arabs from their land in the Negev.

Here is Adalah.Org on the plan:

On 24 June 2013, the Israeli Knesset approved the discriminatory Prawer-Begin Bill, with 43 votes for and 40 votes against, for the mass expulsion of the Arab Bedouin community in the Naqab (Negev) desert in the south of Israel. If fully implemented, the Prawer-Begin Plan will result in the destruction of 35 "unrecognized"Arab Bedouin villages, the forced displacement of up to 70,000 Arab Bedouin citizens of Israel, and the dispossession of their historical lands in the Naqab. Despite the Arab Bedouin community's complete rejection of the plan and strong disapproval from the international community and human rights groups, the Prawer Plan is happening now.

The Prawer-Begin Bill is an unacceptable proposition that entrenches the state’s historic injustice against its Bedouin citizens. Adalah and our NGO partners have been challenging the Prawer Plan before courts, government authorities and the international community, but we need your help to stop what would be the largest single act of forced displacement of Arab citizens of Israel since the 1950s!

Now this is big news for most of us but alas, not for the BBC.  Amal Elsana Alh'jooj spoke about inequality, exclusion, segregation, expulsion but all on a personal level with regard to her own dealings with her own community or the informal, rather than formal, segregation between Jews and Arabs.

Oh I'm sure her work is valuable and important but the BBC here seems to have deliberately distracted attention from a core issue regarding the State of Israel and its native non-Jewish population.  They are under a permanent threat of ethnic cleansing and of course the reason Arabs are a minority within Israel's pre-1967 borders is because of a recent, current and, as we see, on-going ethnic cleansing campaign.  And of course one of the reasons they get away with it is because of the help and encouragement they get from mainstream media organisations like the BBC.

Anyway, give the BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour programme a listen and see what I mean.

Zionists making presence felt at BBC?

No sooner had I read an Electronic Intifada article about how Zionist have taken top posts at the BBC than I read that a programme questioning the story of the exile of Jews from Palestine has been pulled from BBC 4.

The details of the programme are still up on the Radio Times website.  Here's the blurb:

The exile of the Jewish people has played a central role in Christian and Jewish theology for nearly 2,000 years, even being mentioned in Israel's national anthem and its declaration of independence. But what if the exile never actually happened?

This documentary by Ilan Ziv looks at new evidence that suggests the majority of the Jewish people may not have been exiled following the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD. Travelling from Galilee to Jerusalem and the catacombs of Rome, the film invites us to review and rethink our ideas around the exile, raising important ethical questions about its impact on present-day Middle Eastern issues along the way.

Here's what The Commentator has to say:

BBC documentary set to air last night has been mysteriously pulled from the broadcaster's line-up and has so far failed to appear on its online iPlayer service.

The programme, entitled, "Jerusalem: An Archaeological Mystery Story" was set to air on BBC Four last night at 9pm but was sharply pulled from the line-up in lieu of a programme called, "The Man Who Discovered Egypt" - a repeat of documentary about the British Egyptologist, Flinders Petrie.

The Jerusalem programme was noted by the Guardian's Martin Skegg as, "likely [to] ruffle some feathers" as it deals with the sensitive subject of Jewish exile from Jerusalem in 70AD.

The documentary is closely linked to Ziv's feature film, "Exile" which holds a similar description.

The BBC told The Commentator over its audience participation telephone service that the film was initially brought in to "supplement" the BBC Four series on archaeology and history but that the station's planning department decided at the last minute that the documentary would not "fit editorially".

The BBC insisted that it "plans to show the programme in the future".

The Beeb's explanation doesn't fully explain why it was pulled from the schedule given that it was considered an editorial fit when the schedule was drawn up and for a long while after.  But it certainly doesn't explain why it's been withheld from iPlayer.

And the Beeb "insisted that it "plans to show the programme in the future"".  Well we shall see or maybe we won't.

Gaza Hasbara for UK children on BBC's Newsround

I received this from a friend a few days ago but I only got the chance to look at it just now.  Now read on:

What UK children are told about Israel and the Palestinians

Up to 40 per cent of 6 to 12 year olds in the UK saw this BBC1 Newsround programme that went out at 5.00pm on 21 November 2012, giving the background to the current situation in Gaza and the longer term history behind it.

That's my friend's intro.

Here's the text from relevant page from the Newsround website:

Israelis and Arabs have been fighting over Gaza on and off, for decades. It's part of the wider Arab Israeli conflict.

After World War II and the Holocaust in which six million Jewish people were killed, Jewish people wanted their own country.

They were given a large part of Palestine, which they considered their traditional home but the Arabs who already lived there and in neighbouring countries felt that was unfair and didn't accept the new country.

In 1948, the two sides went to war. When it ended, Gaza was controlled by Egypt and another area, the West Bank, by Jordan. They contained thousands of Palestinians who fled what was now the new Jewish home, Israel.

Israel's recognition

But then, in 1967, after another war, Israel occupied these Palestinian Territories and Israeli troops stayed there for years. Israelis hoped they might exchange the land they won for Arab countries recognising Israel's right to exist and an end to the fighting.

Israel finally left Gaza in 2005 but soon after, a group called Hamas took control there. Much of the world calls Hamas a terrorist organisation. It refuses to recognise Israel as a country and wants Palestinians to be able to return to their old home - and will use violence to achieve its aims.

Since then, Israel has held Gaza under a blockade, which means it controls its borders and limits who can get in and out.

Life in Gaza

Life for the many of the 1.5 million Palestinians who live in the Gaza Strip is difficult.

Israel controls its coastline and all the entry and exit crossings into Israel. There is another crossing point into Egypt. There is no working airport. Because access is so restricted, not many goods get into or out of Gaza. Food is allowed in, but aid agencies say families are not eating as much meat or fresh vegetables and fruit as they used to. There are often power cuts.

Large numbers of people are unemployed because businesses can get very few of their products out of Gaza to sell, and people don't have much money to buy things.

Palestinian refugees

During the 1948 and 1967 wars hundreds of thousands of Palestinians left, or were forced out of, their homes and moved to neighbouring countries to become refugees.

More than 4.6 million Palestinians are refugees and their decendants, many living in camps in the West Bank, Gaza Strip, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. They get help from the United Nations.

Violence in Gaza

Though the Palestinians don't have an army, rockets are regularly fired from Gaza into Israel. Israelis living in border towns are used to having to take shelter and adapting their lives to deal with the rockets.

The last time major violence broke out was in December 2008, when Israel sent soldiers into Gaza to stop Hamas firing rockets over the border. More than 1300 people in Gaza and 13 Israelis died in that conflict and people around the world hope it won't get to that point again.

Peace Process

Other countries, particularly America, have worked hard to settle the fighting between the Arabs and Israelis but so far nothing has worked. Many people want Gaza and the West Bank to be turned into a new country - Palestine. Israel won't agree to this unless it feels safe - and Hamas accepts its right to exist. The other sticking points are what will happen to Israelis who've settled in the West Bank, who will run Jerusalem and what will happen to the Palestinian refugees.

I still haven't seen the programme and the last I checked it was inaccessible but if anyone can find it for me, please let me know.  I think it only remains on line for a week so there's only two days to go.

Ta

One slips through the net

I first saw this clip on Louis Proyect's Unrepentant Marxist site:



It's Independent journalist, Owen Jones on BBC's Question Time a few nights ago.

Is this a record? Israel kills Palestinian within two days of signing ceasefire

According to the BBC:

A Palestinian man has been shot dead by Israeli soldiers close to the Gaza border, say Palestinian officials.

It is the first reported killing since the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into force on Wednesday evening.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said it fired warning shots at a group walking towards the border fence, then fired at their legs when they did not respond.

Towards the end of the BBC report we have this:

The BBC's Jon Donnison [he's the chap who ignored tweeted questions about the killing of his colleague's 11 month old baby] in Gaza says shootings near the border happen fairly often and do not always lead to an escalation of violence.

So what? Israel's always killing Palestinians so it doesn't really mean they've broken a ceasefire but see this:

Israel has unilaterally declared a 300m-wide exclusion zone around the fence which it says is needed for security

Ah, so the "withdrawal from Gaza" is even less of a withdrawal than we're usually told it was. And how does Israel secure the "secure" bit?

Anyway, I asked "is this a record". Israel has killed a Palestinian within two days of signing a ceasefire which most people must have thought meant they would stop killing people in Gaza. They have now killed a Gazan who strayed from Gaza into, er, Gaza. They managed to go more than a day without breaking their word and without killing a Palestinian. That, indeed, might be a record.

New low for the beeb

Ok, it's not really a new low, it's the same old low.  See this article on the New Left Project site:

Yesterday, we documented that BBC News repeatedly invited Jonathan Sacerdoti, former director of public affairs at the Zionist Federation, to offer unchallenged analysis of Israel's continuing attacks on Gaza ('Operation Pillar of Cloud'). Moreover BBC News presented Sacerdoti as a neutral Middle East expert, rather than a professional partisan for Israel. 

Following the publication of that article, Sacerdoti has attempted to scrub the evidence on which it was based from the internet. 

Having previously appeared on the BBC as a Zionist Federation spokesperson, Sacerdoti (now director of a ‘think tank’ with an innocuous name but questionable legitimacy—the ‘Institute for Middle Eastern Democracy’) appeared four times on BBC News between 14-15 November defending Israel’s actions in Gaza, without viewers ever being informed of his history of pro-Israeli activism. 

The BBC appears to have been satisfied that this constituted fair and balanced journalism, even though previous appearances by Sacerdoti were counterbalanced by guests with opposing views, such as Sarah Colborne of the Palestine Solidary Campaign. Perhaps the producers were under the impression that Sacerdoti was a ‘neutral’ Middle East expert?  

Apparently keen to maintain this façade, Sacerdoti began removing videos, photos and written evidence of his former role with the pro-Israel group hours after our article questioning his BBC appearances appeared. (His cat Herzl, named after the founder of Zionism, appears to be less concerned). 

First to disappear was his LinkedIn profile (which we made a screengrab of here). It contained details of his consultancy firm Sacerdoti Creative Consultancy and work at InstMed but no reference to the Zionist Federation or the Board of Deputies of British Jews, another influential pro-Israel group to which Sacerdoti was recently elected.

Next to go was a picture of Sacerdoti meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres (preserved here) which Sacerdoti had uploaded to Flickr and captioned ‘Jonathan Sacerdoti, of Her Majesty’s Secret Service’, 

Sacerdoti scrambled to hide the video evidence of his previous appearances for the Zionist Federation in the media—such as his defence of Israel's May 2010 attack on a Gaza aid flotilla the day after it happened on Sky News and Al Jazeera—by changing the settings of the incriminating videos on his YouTube channel, MrJonSac, to private. He also removed a video he produced with Gili Brenner of Israel advocacy group StandWithUs, promoting a pro-Israel campaign. 

Fortunately, Powerbase / Spinwatch researchers had already made copies of all these videos. Moreover still publically accessible is this video of Sacerdoti on the BBC's 'The Big Questions', in which he is clearly identified as representing the Zionist Federation. 

Sacerdoti’s friend, the pro-Israel blogger Chas Newkey-Burden, today removed a post from hiswebsite called ‘Talk for Israel report’ (5 May 2010), which was linked to in our original article. This screengrab shows why it was of interest: it details Sacerdoti’s talk, at a Zionist Federation event, on how to use social media to 'advocate for Israel'. At the time of writing Newkey-Burden’s website was littered with numerous other references to Sacerdoti’s involvement in pro-Israel activism. Here, for instance, Sacerdoti writes fondly about his week at a 'Diplomatic Seminar for Young Jewish Leaders' run by Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Another blogger, Richard Millett, seems to have been contacted, or has taken it upon himself, to remove a video of Sacerdoti at a pro-Israel rally in Trafalgar Square on 28 August last year. Several photos attest to Sacerdoti’s presence however, including one of him draped in the Israeli flag. 

Since the publication of our original article, it has emerged that Sacerdoti worked for the BBC through his firm Sacerdoti Creative Consultancy. The BBC logo is displayed in his list of clients along with ITV, Channel 4 News, ITN News, Channel 5 and others. He claims to have worked ‘as a consultant development producer and writer for TV production companies, developing factual, entertainment, and reality TV formats.’ It could be that this TV background gave him the contacts to get on prime time news presented as an objective expert on the Middle East, despite being no such thing. 

The absence of significant details from Sacerdoti’s LinkedIn profile and his subsequent attempts to wipe the proof of his pro-Israel partisanship from the internet beg the question of whether he misrepresented his position to the BBC. 

Even if this is the case, it does not excuse the BBC, which should have known or found out that he was not an impartial commentator. It suggests either that they have a worryingly short institutional memory, a lack of producers able to perform basic research on guests or a poor grasp of what journalistic ‘balance’ and ‘fairness’ really mean. Sacerdoti's misleading appearances, moreover, ought to be considered in the context of other failures in recent BBC coverage of Gaza, all of which appear to err in the same direction, as well as a longer BBC history of systematic bias in favour of Israel.

Hilary Aked is a freelance researcher and writer, an NCTJ-qualified journalist and a doctoral candidate at the University of Bath.

Complaints to the BBC can be made on this form.

Gaza protest and the BBC

There is a protest over Israel's attack on Gaza outside the Israeli embassy tomorrow afternoon, Saturday 16 November 2012 from 1400-1600 at 2 Palace Green, London W8 4QB but given that you can't get anywhere near the embassy itself, protests against the BBC might be more appropriate.

See this post to Electronic Intifada:

In a new low for the BBC’s objectively pro-Israel coverage, the British state broadcaster seems to be doing its best to downplay the murder by Israel of family members of one of its own cameramen.

The 11-month-old son of BBC Arabic’s picture editor Jihad Misharawi was killed in Israeli tank shelling last night, along with his sister-in-law, according to BBC journalists on Twitter, and one report online (which didn’t even name him).

EI notes that there was a mention of the killing on Radio 4 by Jon Donnison but this may have been the result of EI's Asa Winstanley questioning him on Twitter:

@jondonnison Jon, on News at 10, why did you not mention your colleague's baby son killed by Israel last night? WP put on front page
— Asa Winstanley (@AsaWinstanley) November 15, 2012

Asa reports:

Donnison did not reply (he is currently reporting from the highly dangerous situation in Gaza), but (to his credit) he did mention Misharawi’s loss during a live dispatch to today’s BBC News at One, speaking of civilian casualties “on both sides.”

We, of course, have been here before with the BBC in the case of Jeremy Bowen's driver who was killed by Israel in Lebanon when it looks like the Israelis were actually trying to kill Jeremy Bowen. This is from an old Independent:

The pivotal moment in his career - "in my life", he corrects - was the Israeli tank attack on the Mercedes car in which he and two colleagues were travelling through southern Lebanon in 2000. At the moment of the attack, Bowen and his cameramen Malek Kanaan were a short distance away doing a piece to camera. Their fixer and driver Abed Takkoush had remained in the vehicle to make a phone call to his son.

With the car in flames, the tank's machine gun prevented Bowen from going to his friend's aid. "I felt like a coward," he writes. "I decided I could not save him and that I had to save myself. The ending was not happy. Life is not a film."

Try searching for Malek Kanaan on the BBC news website. Just one report. Plus ça change. Change? What change?

Aunty Beeb, Jimmy Savile and The State of Israel, how are they related?

Well the answer is that the BBC (aka aunty Beeb) covers up for both Jimmy Savile and the racist war criminals of The State of Israel but Tony Greenstein put it far better than me in a recent letter he had published in The Independent:

There is an irony about the BBC and Jimmy Savile. When you apply for a grant from BBC’s Children in Need you have to supply reams of child protection policies, yet Savile was able to roam and abuse at the very heart of the BBC. Every charity has to have an enhanced Criminal Record Bureau check for any volunteer working with a child. Did Stoke Mandeville do this and if not, why not? Will anyone be prosecuted for this?

The stench of Establishment hypocrisy is overpowering. David Cameron pledges that it must never happen again. We know that similar abuses of power will almost certainly recur, with the same promises that it will never happen again.

Missing are concrete proposals which challenge the citadels of power that allowed Savile to roam free. Five police forces were made aware of complaints against Savile and did nothing. That is systemic failure.

The BBC should be publicly accountable rather than a plaything of the great and good. When the BBC tried to assert its independence over the Iraq war, it was squashed by Blair and Lord Hutton. During the reign of Mark Thompson, it became a faithful lapdog to those in power. In 2006, Thompson personally vetoed a Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza as the BBC’s coverage became overtly pro-Israeli.

If Cameron is serious, then he will ensure that his Government’s proposals for charging those prepared to blow the whistle will be dropped and the whistleblowing legislation strengthened.

Tony Greenstein

Brighton

The letter also appears as a pic on Tony's blog but he was too modest to provide the link which left me with a bit of searching to do on the garish indie site.

London Philharmonic Orchestra condemned

I posted before on the disruption of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra at the Proms by Palestine solidarity protesters. Well, before the performance, four members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra, together with several other people, signed a letter to the Independent, calling on the BBC to cancel its invitation.  These LPO musicians have now been suspended and this has led to another letter with many signatories, this time to the Daily Telegraph:

Musicians’ Israel protest

SIR – We are shocked to hear of the suspension of four members of the London Philharmonic Orchestra for adding their signatures to a letter calling for the BBC to cancel a concert by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.

According to a statement from LPO managers, quoted in the Jewish Chronicle, the action was taken because the musicians included their affiliation to the orchestra with their signatures – a convention that is common practice within the academic world, for example.

One does not have to share the musicians’ support for the campaign for boycotting Israeli institutions to feel grave concern about the bigger issue at stake for artists and others. There is a link being created here between personal conscience and employment, which we must all resist.

A healthy civil society is founded on the ability of all to express non-violent and non-prejudiced opinions, freely and openly, without fear of financial or professional retribution.

The LPO management states that, for it, “music and politics don’t mix” – yet its decision to jeopardise the livelihoods of four talented musicians for expressing their sincerely held views is itself political.

Why should it be so dangerous for artists to speak out on the issue of Israel/Palestine? We are dismayed at the precedent set by this harsh punishment, and we strongly urge the LPO to reconsider its decision.

Howard Brenton
Siobhan Davies 
Mike Leigh 
Sir Geoffrey Bindman QC
Philip Hensher
Miriam Margolyes
Richard Barrett
Caryl Churchill
Siobhan Davies 
John Harteco
A.L. Kennedy
Ken Loach
Simon McBurney
Steve Martland
Annette Moreau
Cornelia Parker 
Prof. Jacqueline Rose
Michael Rosen
Alexei Sayle
Kamila Shamsie
Mark Wallinger
Dame Harriet Walter
Benjamin Zephaniah
Kirsty Alexander 
Yasmin Alibhai-Brown 
Michael Attenborough
Prof. Mona Baker
Derek Ball
Chris Bluemel
Richard Black
Ian Bourn
Prof. Haim Bresheeth
Victoria Brittain
Michael Carlin
Jonathan Chadwick
Prof. Michael Chanan
Sacha Craddock
Andy Cowton
Raymond Deane
Ivor Dembina
Dr Kay Dickinson
Dr Hugh Dunkerley
Tony Dowmunt
Patrick Duval
Gareth Evans
Moris Farhi
Dr Naomi Foyle
Jane Frere
Carol-Anne Grainger
Tony Graham
Lee Hall
Michelle Hanson
Laura Hastings-Smith
Dr Wallace Heimwriter 
John Hegley
Matthew Herbert
Prof. Susan Himmelweit 
Mary Hoffman
Dr Fergus Johnston
Ann Jungman
Reem Kelani
Judith Kazantzis
Conor Kelly
Anthea Kennedy
Aleksander Kolkowski
Dr Adam Kossoff
Malcolm Le Grice
Prof. Yosefa Loshitzky 
Jamie McCarthy
Dr Carole McKenzie 
Ewan McLennan
Jeff McMillan
Helen Legg
China Miaville 
Roger Mitchell
Jenny Morgan
Carol Morley
Alan Morrison
Paul Morrison
Ian Pace
Sam Paechter
Miranda Pennell
Jeremy Peyton Jones
Henry Porter
James Purefoy
Laure Prouvost 
William Raban
A.L. Rees
Lynne Reid Banks
Frances Rifkin
Leon Rosselson
Martin Rowson
Dr Khadiga Safwat
Sukhdev Sandhu
Dominic Saunders
Guy Sherwin
Kevin Smith
Prof. John Smith
Anne Solomon
Ahdaf Soueif
Helen Statman
Michael Stevens
Susannah Stone
Trevor Stuart
Ingrid Swenson
Alia Syed
Jennet Thomas
Miranda Tufnell
Prof. David Turner 
Francesca Viceconti
Michelene Wandor
David Ward
Samuel West
Ian Wiblin
Andrew Wilson
Eliza Wyatt
Robin Yassin-Kassab
Zoë Wanamaker
Dr Paul Goodey
Professor John Miller
Anna Clarke

Big of the Telegraph to publish it really given that it's something of an inhouse rag for zionism in the UK. Mind you there are some big names among the signatories and even Norm of Normblog is a little anxious about what the LPO has done.

Egyptian people cut diplomatic relations with Israel

The Guardian is reporting that the Israeli embassy in Cairo has been stormed and broken into by Ehyptian protesters:

Egypt declared a state of alert early this morning after a group of 30 protesters broke into the Israeli embassy in Cairo last night and dumped hundreds of documents out of the windows.

The storming of the building came after a day of demonstrations outside where crowds swinging sledgehammers and using their bare hands tore apart the embassy's security wall. Hundreds of people converged on the embassy throughout the afternoon and into the night, tearing down large sections of the graffiti-covered security wall outside the 21-storey building. For hours, security forces made no attempt to intervene.

The BBC is reporting that the Egyptian security forces are now intervening and actually shooting at protesters:

Security forces fired tear gas and drove armoured vehicles at protesters, who responded by throwing stones and petrol bombs. Hundreds were injured.

The protesters broke into the embassy building, entering consular offices and throwing out documents, officials said.

Israel's ambassador has flown out of Egypt back to Tel Aviv.

Hundreds of protesters remain near the embassy, burning tyres in the street, chanting slogans against Egypt's military rulers.

Egypt's governing military council is meeting later on Saturday to address the situation, says the BBC's Bethany Bell in Cairo.

Riot police remain on the streets and live gunshots have been heard, our correspondent says, while the air is still thick with tear gas.

And here's al Jazeera:

Palestine at the Proms

The Proms was disrupted by Palestine solidarity activists last night.  Here's the BBC:

Protesters have disrupted the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra's BBC Proms concert at London's Royal Albert Hall.

Several demonstrators in the hall shouted as Zubin Mehta stood to conduct Bruch's violin concerto. Many other audience members booed in response.

BBC Radio 3 said it had to interrupt its live broadcast twice "as a result of sustained audience disturbance".

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign had earlier called on people to boycott the concert and urged the BBC to cancel it.

In a statement published on its website ahead of the Proms, the pro-Palestinian group claimed the IPO showed "complicity in whitewashing Israel's persistent violations of international law and human rights".

The BBC Proms Team tweeted: "We're sorry that the concert was taken off air following hall disturbance. Glad both pieces were heard by the audience in the RAH."

It later added: "We regret that as a result of sustained audience disturbance tonight's concert was taken off BBC Radio 3."

The performance, which consisted of four parts, was interrupted at about 19:45 BST and coverage was cut off again an hour later after more protests.

A spokeswoman for BBC Proms said it appeared each piece had been targeted by different protesters seated around the hall.

She said the broadcaster was "disappointed" the coverage had been taken off air but said the performance had continued in the hall.

About 30 people were removed by security but there were no arrests and no violence, she said.

I'm actually surprised there was no violence. Harry's Place promoted a counter demonstration and I expected it would be similar to the zionists' picket of the Rachel Corrie commemoration a few years ago. But then the event was in support of the victims of ethnic cleansing, not the perpetrators so I suppose the zionists had a different audience in mind this time around.

Overcome BBC censorship of Palestine for 69p

Many will have read of how the BBC somehow beeped out the word "Palestine" from a rap and they don't seem to be too keen to play the song, Freedom for Palestine by OneWorld.  Well apparently if you buy this song on line today it could well make it into the Top 40 in which case even the Beeb will be forced to play it or openly ban it.  So go ahead and buy it for a mere 69p depending on the source.



Thanks

More bad news from Israel

There is an update of the Greg Philo and Mike Berry book, Bad News from Israel titled More Bad News from Israel. Here's former BBC reporter, Tim Llewellyn in The Guardian:

Philo and Berry quote the BBC correspondent Paul Adams, a Middle East expert: what is missing from the coverage, he says, is the view that the Palestinians are engaged in a war of national liberation, trying to throw off an occupying force. Any Israeli casualty is headline news, shown in high quality images. BBC teams are based in West Jerusalem, de facto Israeli territory, and are on hand. Arab casualties may be shown in reports of a funeral, usually agency film, the victim anonymous. The Israelis, it seems, are for the BBC "people like us". The Arabs are "the other".

Racist bias at the beeb? Surely not. Here's the beeb's response published by The Guardian at the bottom of the Lllewellyn article:

BBC News endeavours to report on all matters in the Middle East – as elsewhere – impartially, objectively and accurately.

We have extensive editorial guidelines which all reporters and producers are required to observe.

In a highly charged political atmosphere any impartial and accountable broadcaster will rightly find itself under scrutiny by all shades of opinion.

In the Middle East debate there are organised, motivated and effective lobby groups on both sides of the argument.

We listen to their concerns and act on them where we think they are justified, but in doing so we bear in mind that our audiences expect us to remain independent of political pressure.

Although Tim Llewellyn was indeed a BBC correspondent some years ago, we note that he subsequently was active for a period with the Council for Arab-British Understanding (CAABU).

Aha! So he'd be with "the other" then...

No applause for Israel shock!

At least I think that's what happened. There's a BBC Radio 4 programme called Any Questions and this week's edition had George Monbiot, Doug Richard, Susan Greenfield and Kelvin McKenzie. You can read their credentials on the site. What I'd like you to do is give the programme a bit of a listen and see if you hear Kelvin McKenzie, in the context of western support for Arab dictatorships, saying "Israel is our friend". I've heard this nonsense many times but this time it was in front of a live audience and what I think happened next was that no one applauded. George Monbiot was applauded for his condemnation of the UK arming dictatorial regimes. Doug Richard had a swipe at Monbiot for that. But McKenzie clearly thought that "Israel is our friend" was a substitute for any reasoned comment about anything else in the Middle East but listen for yourself.

I'm a little anxious now that I may have switched the radio off too soon.  Maybe he was applauded after all so perhaps someone could let me know.

Thanks

UPDATE: Many thanks to Gert in the comments for listening to the programme and confirming that there was no applause for the vacuous statement, "Israel is our friend".

Kicking off in "democratic" Iraq

I'm hearing (but only just) about demonstrations and repression in occupied Iraq. The Morning Star had a report yesterday:

Police fired on thousands of demonstrators in Kut today, killing at least three people as protests over decrepit public services and government corruption intensified across occupied Iraq.

Enraged protesters responded by storming the governor's headquarters and his home, setting both ablaze.

Authorities said that at least 27 people were injured in the chaos, including one police officer.

On Tuesday thousands rallied in Fallujah, Kirkuk and Baghdad to demand job creation programmes and better electricity supplies.

In Fallujah protesters massed outside the city council building and the mayor's office demanding the resignation of the mayor and the head of the city council for failing to tackle corruption and provide basic public services.

Some demonstrators shouted, "Down with al-Maliki," referring to Iraqi PM Nouri al-Maliki.

Others carried banners saying, "No for sectarianism, yes for unity, down with al-Maliki's government," "No restriction on freedom of expression, no to random detentions and raids, no to corrupted politicians and thieves," and "We demand better basic services - electricity, oil and food rations."

Angry Arab has pointed to what he believes is a general cover-up of a self-immolation in Iraq. Google translations aren't that reliable (or even intelligible sometimes) but this one from al Jazeera seems ok(ish):

The family of a young Iraqi Abdul Munir Abdullah, who committed suicide two days ago where burnt himself in the city of Mosul, said local authorities summoned the father and asked him to refrain from talking to the media for the suicide of his son.

The brother of a young suicide bomber in an interview to the island over the phone that the security agencies summoned his father first on Monday and Tuesday, and asked him not to talk about the suicide of his son and to say that the cause of death "of fate" and not, as reported by satellite TV and the media that he committed suicide because of despair and the pressures of life and hardship live.

A correspondent to the Arab Media Watch list has questioned the eerie silence of the BBC over all this and they have posted a link to this video which shows shots being fired into an unarmed crowd:

The BBC Arabic report does not mention the dead and injured but quotes the chief of police Hussain Jassim as saying those who fired on the protesters are private contractor guards and 'are outside the law'.

Of course, the Beeb's report could have been updated by now but don't hold your breath.

Truth slips out at the BBC

It took me a while to figure what was being said here. It's from Ellis Sharp's Barbaric Document blog

Yes, the PROTEST in Egypt certainly puts the ongoing land theft/repression of Palestinians by Israel AT RISK, in all kinds of ways.

And now normal service is resumed, whereby the BBC continues to promote the fiction that there is something called 'the Middle East peace process'.